Ben Kapilow

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Ben Kapilow currently works as the Resident Music Director at the Media Theatre in Media, PA, music directing shows for their Broadway Series as well as their summer programs.

Ben began playing piano in elementary school, drums in middle school, and he began composing at age 14, taking lessons at a local music school with jazz composer Kris Davis and then at The Juilliard School with Daniel Ott at age 17. He continued his studies with Samuel Adler and Derek Bermel at the Bowdoin International Music Festival, on a Monroe C. Beardsley Fellowship.

Some highlights of Ben's compositional endeavors have included a choral piece commissioned by the University of Scranton Singers, an electronic piece which was played for two consecutive years at the Jack O'Lantern Blaze Festival in Hudson Valley, New York, a collaboration with a Philadelphia-based rapper named Gabe Starky, composing incidental music for the American Thymele Theater's production of Hecuba, and writing variations on "Happy Birthday" for Symphony Number One, a new music ensemble based in Baltimore.

One of Ben's biggest interests, however, is writing music for children, as he has written several children's chorus pieces that have been performed by about 40 elementary and middle school vocal and instrumental groups. The Media Theatre has premiered four of his children's musicals. His children's musical "Peter Pan and Wendy" which won "Best New Work" in the 2016 Broadwayworld Philadelphia Awards and is going to be performed at the American Contemporary Theater of Connecticut in Summer 2018.

Active in education, he has worked as a Lead Songwriting Instructor for Groove LLC, Piano Teacher at the Darlington Arts Center in Garnet Valley, PA and for the Meridee Winters School of Music in Ardmore, PA, the teacher of a Music Composition Software class at the Nelly Berman School of Music in Haverford, PA, a Music Program Assistant at the Roundhouse Theater in Silver Spring, Maryland, Teaching Assistant to an EPGY course called "How Music Works" at Stanford University, and as a Composition Assistant at the New York Summer Music Festival. Before working at the Media Theatre, he served similar capacities as the Music Director for the Mother of Providence School in Wallingford, PA and the St. Pius X School in Broomall, PA. He currently holds PreK-12 Music Teacher Certification for the state of Maryland.

In 2017, he received an M.M. in Music Composition from the Peabody Conservatory, graduating with Pi Kappa Lambda distinction. In 2013, he received a B.A. in Music and Psychology from Swarthmore College, graduating with Phi Beta Kappa distinction.